Spring Snow

  He deferred his hopes to the next day, and when he thought over his initial failure in solitude, he concluded that it was due to his presumption in taking the rickshaw right up to the very entrance of the convent. He had been driven to it by his anxiety and haste, of course, but since seeing Satoko again was a kind of supplication, he decided that he should have got out at the gate and walked from there, whether the nuns took note of this show of devotion or not. He had better do some kind of penance.

  His room at the inn was dirty, the food was tasteless, and the night cold. But the thought of Satoko now nearby gave him a feeling of deep contentment. That night, for the first time in months, he slept soundly.

  The next day was the twenty-third; he felt more energetic and went to the convent twice—once in the morning and again in the afternoon—leaving the rickshaw at the gate and climbing the long sloping path as a pilgrim would. However, his reception was no warmer than the day before. On the ride back, he began to cough, and felt a slight pain deep inside his chest. He decided against using the hot bath at the inn.

  His dinner that night proved to be of a quality wholly unexpected at a country inn of this sort. Furthermore, not only had everyone’s behavior toward him markedly improved but despite his protests, he had been moved into the best room the inn had to offer. When he demanded an explanation from the maid, she tried to put him off. Finally, however, when he became angry with her, the mystery was solved. She told him that while he had been out that day, a local policeman had come and questioned the innkeeper closely about him. The policeman then said that Kiyoaki was from an extremely exalted family. He was therefore to be treated with the utmost deference, but on no account was he to learn of the policeman’s visit. Furthermore, should he move out of the inn, the police were to be informed immediately. Kiyoaki felt a rush of fear. He realized that he had no time to lose.

  When he got up next morning, the twenty-fourth of February, he felt very much out of sorts. His head was stuffy and he was listless. Nevertheless, his mind was made up. If he was ever to see Satoko again, he had to commit all his strength to the penance he must undergo, whatever hardship it entailed. In this mood he set out from the inn, and, without hiring a rickshaw, started on the more than two miles to Gesshu. Fortunately it was a beautiful morning. The road itself, however, was none too easy. Moreover his cough grew worse as he walked, and he had a sensation in his chest like the settling of metallic dust. A severe fit of coughing overtook him at the very entrance to Gesshu. The expression on the face of the senior nun who met him remained unaltered as she refused his request in precisely the same terms.

  The next day, the twenty-fifth, he began to have chills and fever. Although he realized that it was unwise to go out, he hired a rickshaw once more and went to the convent, only to be rebuffed just as before. His hope at last began to fail. Hindered by the fever that clouded his mind, he tried to evaluate the situation, but no feasible course of action occurred to him. Finally, he told the clerk at the inn to send a telegram: “Please come at once. Am at the Kuzonoya in Obitoké on Sakurai Line. Not a word to my parents. Kiyoaki Matsugae.”

  This done, he passed an uncomfortable night before waking groggily on the morning of the twenty-sixth.

  52

  IT WAS A MORNING when light flakes of snow danced in the brisk wind that swept over the plain of Yamato. They seemed too fragile even for spring snow, but were rather more reminiscent of a swarm of summer insects. When the sky remained overcast, they disappeared against the clouds. Only when the sun shone through did one become aware of the powdery, swirling snow. The cold in the air was worse than it would have been on a day of heavy snow.

  As he lay with his head on his pillow, he considered how he could prove his ultimate devotion to Satoko. The night before he had at last decided to appeal to Honda for help, and he was sure that his friend would come today without fail. With Honda to sustain him, perhaps he might be able to soften the Abbess’s unyielding attitude. But before that there was one thing he had to do. He had to try it. All by himself, with no one’s help, he had to demonstrate the purity of his devotion. On looking back, he realized that up to now he had not even once had the opportunity of proving this devotion to Satoko. Or perhaps, he thought, his cowardice had made him flee any such opportunity until now.

  Today, there was only one thing for him to do. To go out, ill as he was, to risk worse illness, was a significantly great penance. Devotion so overwhelming might stir a response from Satoko, or then again it might not. Whatever the result, even if there were not the faintest hope of her being moved, he had now reached a state of mind where he would have no peace until he had done this thing, done it as a penance that he demanded of himself. He had begun his journey completely obsessed by a single thought: to have even a single glimpse of her face. In the meantime, however, his heart had formed another resolution of its own, that overrode his intentions and desires.

  The only force to counter this wayward urge in his heart was his body itself. He was in the grip of an aching fever. A heavy gold thread had been strung through every part of it, embroidering his flesh with pain and heat. The strength had gone out of him. If he lifted his arm, the pale skin immediately turned blue and cold, and the arm itself became as heavy as a full bucket in a well. His cough seemed to come from deeper and deeper in his chest, like the constant rumble of distant thunder on a darkened horizon. His body balked at his demands, weak and enervated to the very fingertips under the assault of the burning fever that shot through him.

  He called Satoko’s name more and more desperately. The empty hours dragged by. This morning, for the first time, the servants at the inn realized that he was ill. They warmed his room and anxiously set about doing all they could to make him comfortable, but he stubbornly refused to allow them either to treat him themselves or call a doctor.

  Finally in the afternoon, he told the maid to hire a rickshaw for him. She hesitated, and went to tell the innkeeper. When the man came up to his room and tried to persuade him to stay indoors, he struggled to his feet, got into his uniform and put on his overcoat without help, to put on a show of health. A rickshaw came. He set out in it, his legs wrapped in a blanket that the inn maids had thrust in after him. Despite its protection, however, he was attacked by the terrible force of the cold.

  His eye was caught by the stray snowflakes swirling in through the openings left by the black canvas rickshaw cover. Suddenly the vivid memory of the ride through the snow with Satoko just a year before came to him, and his chest tightened with emotion and a grating pain.

  He could no longer cower in the gloom inside the swaying rickshaw, doing nothing but trying to endure the pain in his head. He loosened the front flap of the bonnet and then pulled his muffler up over his mouth and nose and looked out at the passing scenery, his eyes watering with fever. He wanted to rid his mind of any image that would drive his thoughts back upon the pain that racked him.

  The rickshaw had already passed out of the narrow lanes of Obitoké. Powdered snow fell on the fields and paddies to either side of the flat road that led directly to where Gesshu stood among the mountains shrouded in cloud. It fell on the rice shocks left in the paddies, on the withered mulberry leaves, on the blurred green of the pak-choi leaves that separated the rice and mulberry fields, on the rust-colored reeds and bulrushes on the marshes. It kept falling noiselessly, but was not enough to cover the ground. Even the flakes that fell on his blanket vanished without leaving obvious drops of moisture.

  He saw the flat white of the sky grow gradually brighter until a pale sun at last shone through the clouds. The falling snow blended into this new brightness more and more, until it was like a fine white ash floating in the air.

  All along the road, the tall, dry grass swayed in the light wind, its feathery plumes having a faint glint of silver in the cold sunlight. Just beyond the fields, the foothills were shrouded in gray, but in the distance was a corner of clear blue sky and the snow-capped mountains were dazzling white.

&
nbsp; As he gazed out at the scenery around him, his ears ringing with fever, he felt that he was really in touch with external reality for the first time in long months. The world around him was absolutely still. The swaying of the rickshaw and the heaviness of his eyelids may well have confused what he saw out there, but whatever the incidental distortion, this was a clear enough confrontation. And since he had been floundering about for so long in a chaotic darkness of sorrow and worry, the experience struck him with all the force of novelty. Wherever he looked, moreover, there was no sign of human life.

  The rickshaw was already getting close to the thick growth of bamboo that covered the mountainside and surrounded Gesshu itself. Up ahead, towering over the bamboos, stood the pines that lined the road as it began its upward climb inside the gate. When he saw the austere stone gate posts at the end of the winding length of road that led out of the fields, he was convulsed by a spasm of poignant fear.

  “If I go in through the gate in the rickshaw,” he told himself, “and then the four hundred or so yards up to the front door—if I ride all the way, I have the feeling that they won’t let me see Satoko today either. Maybe things have changed a little since last time. Maybe the old nun took my part with the Abbess, and now she’s relented a bit. And then if they see that I’ve walked up through the snow, she might let me see Satoko, if only for a moment. But if I ride all the way, that could make a bad impression on them and provoke an instinctive reaction against me. Then the Abbess might decide never to let me see Satoko. All my efforts should bring about some change of heart in them. It’s like a fan made with hundreds of thin, delicate slats held together by a single rivet. If I’m at all careless, the rivet will come loose, and the whole thing will fall apart. And then, if I rode all the way to the front door and wasn’t able to see Satoko, I’d feel it was my fault. I’d tell myself it was because I was insincere. I’d know in my heart that if only I had got out of the rickshaw and walked, no matter how weak I felt, then such sincerity—even if she was unaware of it—would have affected her, and she would have seen me. That’s it then. There’s no reason to have such regrets. I have no other choice but to risk my life if I want to see her. To me, she’s the essence of beauty. And it’s only that which has brought me this far.”

  He himself no longer knew whether his reasoning was ordered or wildly disturbed by fever. He told the rickshaw man to stop at the gate. Then after getting out and telling him to wait there, he began to walk up the slope. The sun was coming through again, and the snowflakes danced in its pale rays. From the bamboo groves on either side of him he heard a chirping that sounded like a lark. Green moss grew on the trunks of the bare cherry trees that were scattered among the pines along the roadside. A single plum tree bloomed white in the midst of the bamboos.

  Having come this way six times in the last five days, it would seem that there was nothing left to catch him unawares. But as he began to make his way upward from where he had left the rickshaw, with unsteady legs and stumbling feet, he looked around him and the world took on a mournful clarity in his fevered eyes. The scenery that had become familiar in recent days now had a strange novelty about it that was almost unnerving. And at every moment, sharp-pointed silver arrows of cold shot through his spine. The ferns along the road, the red-berried spearflowers, the pine needles rustling in the wind, the bamboos with their green trunks and yellowed leaves, the abundance of tall dry grass, the road itself, rutted and white with frost as it passed through the midst of it all—Kiyoaki’s eyes followed everything until it finally merged into the black shadow that lay across the road ahead as it rose through a grove of cedars. Surrounded by unbroken silence and utter clarity was a world untouched by blemish of any kind. And at its center, so inexpressibly poignant, at its innermost heart, he knew, was Satoko herself, her figure as quiet and still as an exquisite gold statue. But could such a still and perfect world, which eschewed all intimacy, really bear any relation to the familiar world he knew?

  His breath grew harsh as he walked. Stopping to rest, he sat down on a large rock beside the road, only to be struck to the bone immediately by its intense chill, as though his layers of clothing could do nothing to hinder it. He coughed deeply, and as he did so, he saw that the handkerchief he held over his mouth was covered with rusty phlegm.

  After his fit had gradually subsided, he looked up dizzily at the distant snow-covered mountain peaks that rose up beyond the sparse growth of trees. As his eyes were filled with tears from his coughing spell, his blurred vision seemed to heighten the sparkle of the snow. At that instant a memory of his thirteenth birthday came back to him. He was an imperial page once more, looking up at Princess Kasuga ahead of him as he held her train. The snowy peaks before his eyes today were the very image of the white that had dazzled him that day—the pure color of the nape of her neck under the lustrous black of her hair. That had been the moment in his life when a divine female beauty had first moved him to adoration.

  The sun disappeared once more. Gradually the snow came down more heavily. He took off his glove and caught some flakes in one hand. His palm was hot with fever, and they melted before his eyes as soon as they touched it. How well he had looked after his beautifully shaped hand, he reflected—it had never been dirtied, never known a blister. He had used it, but only in emotion.

  Finally he got to his feet and started walking again, wondering whether he would be able to plod through the snow and reach the temple. By the time he had climbed as far as the cedar grove, the wind had grown much worse and its harsh whine throbbed in his ears. The cedars thinned to reveal a small pond, its chill surface a froth of ripples under the leaden winter sky. Once past the pond, the gloomy darkness of the thick old cedars closed in on him again, their branches deflecting the force of the pelting snow.

  By now he had but one objective: to keep putting one foot in front of the other. All his recollections of the past had crumbled away. He now knew that the future would only reveal itself at this pace, foot by foot, yard by yard, as he painfully struggled forward.

  He went through the black gate without realizing it, and when he looked up, he saw the Tang entrance itself in front of him. Snow clung to the row of chrysanthemum tiles that formed its eaves.

  Collapsing in front of the sliding door, he broke into such a violent fit of coughing that there was no need to call out.

  The senior nun opened the door and immediately began to rub his back to relieve his spasm. In a kind of trance, he had the indescribably blissful feeling that Satoko had come, that her hands were now caressing him.

  The old nun did not refuse him at once today as she had before. Instead she left him there after a few moments and went back inside. He waited for a long time, feeling the minutes stretch out interminably. And as he waited, a mist seemed to cloud his sight. His pain, his joyful hope, both dissolved gradually into a single vague state of consciousness.

  He heard women’s voices in a flurry of conversation. Then silence again. More time passed. When the door slid open once more, the senior nun was alone.

  “I’m sorry. Your request for a meeting cannot be granted. No matter how many times you come here, sir, I shall be forced to give you the same answer. I will arrange for a servant of the convent to accompany you, so please be kind enough to leave.”

  Helped by the janitor, who was fortunately a strong man, he went back down the road to where his rickshaw was waiting.

  53

  HONDA ARRIVED AT THE INN in Obitoké late on the night of February 26. As soon as he saw how critical Kiyoaki’s condition was, he was all for taking him back to Tokyo at once, but his friend would not hear of it. He discovered that the local doctor who had been summoned earlier in the evening had said that the symptoms indicated pneumonia.

  Kiyoaki pleaded with him desperately. He wanted his friend to go to Gesshu next day, to talk to the Abbess, make every effort to soften her attitude. Since Honda was not involved, his words might perhaps have some effect on Her Reverence. And if she should relent, he want
ed Honda to take him up to the temple.

  Honda resisted for a time, but finally gave in, agreeing to delay their departure by one day. At all costs he would try to obtain an interview with the Abbess next day and do all he could on Kiyoaki’s behalf. But he made his friend promise faithfully that if she should still refuse, he would go back to Tokyo with him immediately. Honda stayed up all that night, changing the wet dressings on Kiyoaki’s chest. By the light of the dim lamp in the room, he saw that his skin, white as it was, now had a slight tinge of red from the dressings that covered it.

  The final exams were only three days away. He had had every reason to expect his parents to be opposed to his making any trip at all right now. But when he had shown Kiyoaki’s telegram to his father, surprisingly he had told him to go ahead, without asking any further details. And his mother had quite agreed. Justice Honda had once been ready to sacrifice his career for the sake of his old colleagues who were being forced to retire because the system of life tenure was being abolished. Now he intended to teach his son the value of friendship. During the train ride to Osaka, Honda had worked intently, and even now, as he held watch at Kiyoaki’s bedside, he had his logic notebook open beside him.

  In one circle of pale yellow light the lamp above them caught the ultimate symbols of two diametrically opposed worlds to which these young men had given themselves. One of them lay critically ill for the sake of love. The other was preparing himself for the grave demands of reality.

  Kiyoaki, half asleep, was swimming in a chaotic sea of passion, seaweed clutching at his legs. Honda was dreaming of the world as a creation securely based on a foundation of order and reason. And so throughout a bitter night in early spring, in the room of an old country inn, these two young men’s heads were close together under the light, one coolly rational, one burning with fever, each in turn finally bound by the rhythm of his own particular world.